Posted on 05/24/2016 6:49:46 AM PDT by Salvation
Many of you know that I write the Question and Answer column for Our Sunday Visitor. Given the celebration of Trinity Sunday this past Sunday, I thought I might reproduce here on the blog a question/answer regarding the Trinity. It is a fairly common question; perhaps you have it, too. Remember that my answers in the column are required to be brief.
We read in a recent Sunday Gospel (May 1, 2016) that Jesus says that the Father is greater than He (Jn 14:28). Since we are all taught that each Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity fully possesses the nature of God, equally to be adored and glorified, what did Jesus mean by such a statement?” – Dick Smith, Carrolton, TX.
Theologically, Jesus means that the Father is the eternal source in the Trinity. All three persons of the Trinity are co-eternal, co-equal, and equally divine. But the Father is the Principium Deitatis (the Source in the Deity).
Hence, Jesus proceeds from the Father from all eternity. He is eternally begotten of the Father. In effect, Jesus is saying, “I delight that the Father is the eternal principle or source of my being, even though I have no origin in time.”
Devotionally, Jesus is saying that He always does what pleases His Father. Jesus loves His Father; He’s crazy about Him. He is always talking about Him and pointing to Him. By calling the Father greater, He says (in effect), “I look to my Father for everything. I do what I see Him doing (Jn 5:19) and what I know pleases Him (Jn 5:30). His will and mine are one. What I will to do proceeds from Him. I do what I know accords with His will.”
So although the members of the Trinity are all equal in dignity, there are processions in the Trinity, such that the Father is the source, the Son eternally proceeds from Him (Jn 8:42), and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principal (Jn 15:26).
St Thomas speaks poetically of the Trinity as follows:
Genitori, Genitoque … Procedenti ab utroque … compar sit laudautio
(To the One Who Begets, and to the Begotton One, and to the One who proceeds from them both, be equal praise.)
The Athanasian Creed says the following regarding these processions:
The Father is made by none, neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone, neither made nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but he proceeds from them.
So although equal, processions do have an order. The Father is “greater” (as source), but is equal in dignity to Son and Holy Spirit.
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That was then; this is now.
If you are a two spatial dimension being (living on a plane of only length and width, no height), could you sense a ball or a pencil? ... Only where that three spatial object intersects you tow spatial variable plane.
Philip said to Jesus, 'Just show us the Father Almighty and that will be enough that we know you are Messiah.'
Jesus answered Philip, 'Have I been so long with you and you and you still do not understand that all you can see of The Father is what you see in me? I am in the father and the Father is in Me. If you have seen me you have seen the Father, for all that you can sense of the father is where He intersects your limits of spacetime. And Philip, that is Me.'
Jesus IS God, intersecting the limits of our sensing. When He appears to take belivers to The Father's House, we will be less limited and we will see Him as He IS. [1John3]
Meant to ping you brothers
“Christ and God The Father are not the same being.”
“I and my Father are one.” - Jesus Christ (John 10:30)
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
“It would be pretty nutty for the person who doubts to say, “You know my thoughts? Oh, so you must be God then.””
Well, the disciples took Jesus’ omniscience as plain proof of his divine origin:
‘His disciples said to Him, “See, now You are speaking plainly, and using no figure of speech! Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You. By this we believe that You came forth from God.”’ - John 16:29-30
That is possibly the most profound statement in all of History. So many miss the significance of that statement, passing over it too quickly. ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us ...’
“The three mentioned above are Gods...”
“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me” Isaiah 46:9
It is quite packed with meaning, kind of a very abridged version of history from Genesis 1 through the Gospels.
It reads plainly.
The hand-wringers are confounded and confused about Jesus' statements. He has a devil? Well no, others argue, or he wouldn't be giving sight to the blind. They then demand that he tell them plainly if he's the Messiah. He says he *did* tell them, but that they didn't believe him.
Everything he is saying, is sailing right over their heads. Nothing is getting through. They are misinterpreting his words. So deaf as they are, when Jesus says (v. 30), "I and the Father are one", they hear a crazy fellow claiming to be God. He then attempts to correct *that* gross misinterpretation, to no avail. Their hyper-literal bad eye sees a man claiming to be God, so stone him already. How can they apprehend a spiritual meaning about unity of mind and purpose, when they can't even grasp those basic sheep metaphors.
Now in Christian circles, this cluelessness has been turned into keen insight! Ah, yeah, these brilliant thinkers perceived accurately that he was claiming to be God. Never mind that the context of the entire exchange is that Jesus is pointing out to these fine folks that they are blind and deaf.
As far as chapter 16. Of course he came from the Father. The Father sent him. The Father told him a whole lot of stuff. That's what you do when you send a person on a mission. Tell him everything so he can accomplish the task. John the Baptist was sent also, in order to prepare the way.
More from the bizarro world of extreme irony: the popular belief that an antichrist is going to sit in the temple and claim to be God, and that the Jews are going to fall for it. The Jews, the same who reject the Christian Jesus/trinity in large part because they they firmly reject any man-god messiah or anyone claiming to be of that nature, are supposedly going to fall for such a scam. In the real world, however, it is the Church who believes in and is expecting a God-man messiah. In the NT, besides the literal "He spake of the temple of his body", the temple, metaphorically, is the body of Christ i.e. the Church. Besides, the last thing a humble, Godly man is going to think, or "know", is that he is God. If he's "fully man" and yet "fully God", the whole concept implodes on itself. Such is the way with nonsensical doctrines. What are people thinking with this stuff?
And so it goes.
Society's rejects, old folks, assorted outliers and outcasts... they don't really have to care what people think of them. Kind of like those tax-collectors, harlots, sinners, and people deficient in the knowledge of proper hand-washing techniques. So they sat there and listened to the Master, overwhelmed by his mercy, love, and compassion. Real healing properties there. He made them whole, at peace. Yet for some reason, the religious establishment just didn't feel the love, and certainly not the peace. For them it was a sword.
History repeats. The experts are going to see him and then produce a laundry list of doctrinal reasons why he's not the one.
Elsie:
“Mormon Scripture”, the delusions of Joseph Smith, who created a religion to justify his lust by legalizing polygamy in his religion. No need to quote Mormon writings to me, they are not worth the paper they are written on.
Straight from GOD! to replaced the error filled KJV that SLC still uses.
I always ask our LDS friends where the Bible is incorrectly translated?
I have found most Mormons to be good, moral people, and I tell them that. Having said that, I just tell them that I will not, under any circumstances, accept any other publication, except for the Bible. That usually stops the discussion in its tracks.
“He then attempts to correct *that* gross misinterpretation, to no avail. Their hyper-literal bad eye sees a man claiming to be God, so stone him already.”
Your entire argument hinges on this, that you claim Jesus did NOT believe himself to be God, yet it is easy to demonstrate that he did. Now, Jesus was a Jew, a holy and righteous Jew, I think we can both agree on that. The 10 commandments of the Jewish faith, their highest law, forbids worship of anyone but God. Yet, we see in the New Testament men worshiping Jesus, and he never says a word or lifts a finger to stop them from doing what, if he were not God, would be the gravest sin according to Jewish law.
For example:
‘And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”’ Matthew 14:32-33
‘And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him’ Matthew 28:8-9
Now, if Jesus was just a holy man and not God, he would have reprimanded these people as Peter or angels did when people tried to worship them, however Jesus never did that, he allowed the worship. This leaves us only with two possibilities: either Jesus believed himself to be God, or Jesus was NOT a holy man at all, but a scoundrel who knew himself not to be God, but allowed people to gravely sin by worshiping him anyway. There is no third option where Jesus is holy but not God.
I haaveheard good things about this one: The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (Complete Infidel's Guides)
ONLY the NWT gets this right; ALL other translations are WRONG!!
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was A God.” John 1:1
PLATES!
Well; except for the 116 pages that VANISHED so long ago.
I guess the Mormon god (which one? I don't know) is unable to PRESERVE his word.
I am just AMAZED!
WHERE do you come UP with this stuff?
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